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Issues: Election 2004
Bush and Kerry's Record on Iraq (2002-2003) (last updated October 13, 2004)
Was it right for the United States to begin military action against Iraq in March 2003? This is probably the biggest difference between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry regarding Iraq.
Both Bush and Kerry said in October 2002 that the use of military force might be necessary but was not inevitable given the possibility that Iraq might cooperate with new weapon inspections. Bush did decide to use military force in March 2003, a decision that Kerry criticized at the time as premature. Bush then sought additional funds for security and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan; Kerry said he would have voted to provide such funds under certain conditions but voted in October 2003 against the funds given the conditions in the final version of the request.
Throughout the 2004 campaign, Bush has defended his decision to initiate military force against Iraq in March 2003, despite new findings that Iraq actually did not have weapons of mass destruction, and has criticized Kerry for having inconsistent positions with regards to Iraq. Kerry has said that Bush should have given weapons inspectors more time and that waiting could have resulted in the broader international support he said was necessary for taking military action; Kerry has also defended his record as consistent.
The following piece puts Bush's and Kerry's actions regarding Iraq in 2002 and 2003 into context. References are also provided to the full text of some of Bush's and Kerry's speeches in this time period.
October 2002: Before the War (back to top)
Bush began military steps towards action in Iraq in November 2001, when Bush ordered the military to begin plans to take military action to remove Saddam Hussein. When General Tommy Franks, then still coordinating the effort in Afghanistan, heard about the request, he reacted with frustration and an expletive, according to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack."
As the military plans took shape, Bush began making the public case for action against Iraq. Bush said in his State of the Union address in January 2002 that Iraq was part of an "axis of evil" for its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (transcript on-line here) and announced a "preemption doctrine" in June 2002 that would justify taking action against rogue states before they could act against the United States (transcript on-line here). Bush and others in his administration - such as Vice President Dick Cheney - then made statements in the summer of 2002 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the United States (e.g., Cheney's August 2002 speech is on-line here).
The move to war in Iraq pulled back somewhat in the fall of 2002 when Bush decided to seek new resolutions from the United Nations, which he called for in a September 12, 2002 speech before the United Nations General Assembly. Bob Woodward reported in "Plan of Attack" that some in the Bush administration had not wanted to bother trying to get resolutions, but that Bush had ultimately followed the recommendations of Secretary of State Colin Powell, United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, Australian President John Howard, and Spain's President Jose Maria Aznar.
On the domestic front, Bush won support from the U.S. Congress in October 2002 to continue to pressure Iraq into complying with its disarmament obligations. A resolution passed by the House on October 10 and by the Senate on October 11 gave Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq "as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."
The Congressional resolution did not mean that such force ultimately would be appropriate but gave Bush more bargaining power and left it to him to make the ultimate decision. In an October 7 speech before the resolution was passed, Bush said that "approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something" (transcript on-line here). In signing the resolution into law on October 16, Bush himself noted that force had been authorized but not ordered, and that he hoped that force would not become necessary and would be used as a "last resort" (transcript on-line here).
Kerry was one of 73 senators who voted for the Congressional resolution but said in an October 9, 2002 speech (full transcript as printed in the Congressional Record on-line here) that he thought military action would be appropriate only if weapon inspections could not accomplish disarmament.
"Let me be clear," Kerry said at the time. "The vote I will give to the President is for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies."
Kerry expressed some concern over whether the ultimate exercise of that authority would be appropriate. He said that the United States should not go to war with Iraq unless it either :
- had the support of the international community (i.e., authorization from the United Nations) or
- there was a grave and imminent - "and I emphasize 'imminent'" - threat which required unilateral military force
"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this," he said. "I will support a multilateral effort to disarm [Saddam Hussein] by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances."
Kerry also said in his October 2002 speech that he would have preferred other versions of the resolution, such as one proposed by Senators Richard Lugar (a Republican) and Joe Biden (a Democrat) that would have required Bush to seek authorization from the United Nations Security Council or explain the threat posed by Iraq.
March 2003: When the War Began (back to top)
Between October 2002 and the start of military operations in March 2003, Bush did try to seek Untied Nations support.
In November 2002, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved Resolution No. 1441, which gave Iraq a "final opportunity" to comply with its disarmament obligations and warned of "serious consequences" if Hussein did not comply with Iraq's disarmament obligations and did not make a "full, accurate and complete" declaration of all its weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration later argued that such language authorized the use of force against Iraq, but the resolution instead called for the Security Council to convene in the event of a breach and did not include language that had been used to authorize war in prior situations. Several Security Council members specifically approved the resolution while saying that they were pleased that "automaticity" had been eliminated from it. Moreover, the Bush administration's efforts in early 2003 to get a new resolution authorizing force suggests that the Bush administration itself recognized the limits of Resolution 1441 at that time.
Iraq quickly agreed to "deal with" the U.N. resolution and to allow inspectors into the country, even while criticizing the resolution's "iniquitous contents" and the "bad faith" of the United States and Britain in seeking it. Iraq did not explicitly say it would grant inspectors full access, and indicated that it would supervise inspectors' conduct to ensure that it would be "lawful and professional." It then submitted a 12,000-page declaration on December 7, and allowed weapons inspectors back into the country for the first time since 1998.
The Bush administration immediately cast doubt on Iraq's cooperation and on the ability of weapons inspectors to prove compliance with disarmament obligations. Even as weapons inspectors began their work and gave reports indicating some cooperation and indicated that their work could prove successful with time, the Bush administration continued to make its case for war and gathered its forces in the Middle East.
Weapons inspectors reported for what would be the last time on March 7, 2003 that Iraq had been cooperating more fully, that even immediate cooperation would take months to verify, and that they had found no indication that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program or had attempted to import uranium. A detailed U.N. press release on weapon inspectors' March 7, 2003 report to the United Nations Security Council is on-line here.
The United States and the United Kingdom pushed in early March for a new Security Council resolution that would authorize the use of force against Iraq, apparently recognizing that Resolution 1441 had not authorized the use of force. But given the clear opposition by other Security Council members, Bush decided to withdraw the resolution from the United Nations and issued an ultimatum on March 17, 2003, calling for Hussein to step down as leader or face military action.
"We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over. With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now, where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities," Bush said (transcript on-line here).
On March 18, according to reports in the Boston Globe, Kerry criticized Bush's decision to go to war given the lack of international support and the uncertain domestic support. "It's the way they have conducted the diplomacy that has compounded this problem, split the UN, split the NATO, left the world wondering with questions, engaged in a more preemptive effort than was necessary," Kerry told the Boston Globe. "We could have moved from a position of strength, in my judgment, and I think it represents a failure of diplomacy of a massive order, and that is what war is: War is the failure of diplomacy."
Kerry also told the Boston Globe on March 18 that he supported U.S. forces and would not voice his criticism once military action began. On March 19, after missile strikes had begun, Kerry told the Boston Globe that "we're in this together. We want to complete the mission while safeguarding our troops, avoiding innocent civilian casualties, disarming Saddam Hussein, and engaging the community of nations to rebuild Iraq."
October 2003: After Major Combat Operations (back to top)
President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, but military action and the war continued throughout 2003 and into 2004.
On September 7, 2002, Bush announced that he would ask Congress for a $87 billion appropriation that would fund ongoing military operations and rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. The appropriations request for $87 billion in new spending ($51 billion for "ongoing military and intelligence operations" in Iraq, $20 billion for rebuilding efforts in Iraq, and $12 billion for military and rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan) implicitly meant that the war in Iraq had already cost more than $80 billion by the fall of 2003 and would cost at least $150 billion. In mid-April 2003, about a month into military operations, Congress had authorized $62.6 billion for military and rebuilding operations on top of the $20 billion already spent by that time.
Congress debated various ways of providing this money, with the Senate considering 92 different amendments to the basic funding measure. One amendment that was sponsored by Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) and co-sponsored by Kerry (S.Amdt.1796) would have funded the $87 billion by suspending the tax cuts enacted in 2001 for the highest tax bracket.
"We should not abandon our mission, and we understand the downsides of doing so. But we ought to demand that whatever we spend in Iraq be paid for with shared sacrifice, not deficit dollars. We are already shortchanging critical domestic programs to pay for unwise tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," Kerry said on October 2 (transcript as printed in the Congressional Record on-line here). "It is simply not unfair to ask those earning the most, those who are the most fortunate, those who are the most talented, the hard-working Americans who are earning more than $300,000, not as matter of any kind of targeting except for the fact that they are the best off and have the greatest ability, to make this sacrifice without a negative impact on their lifestyle, on their choices, on their quality of life."
This amendment was tabled by a 57-42 vote on October 2, 2003.
Most Republicans and Democrats ultimately voted in support of the final form of the request in mid-October 2003, with the Senate voting 87-12 in favor of the request (one Republican did not vote). Kerry, his future running mate Sen. John Edwards, 9 other Democrats, and 1 independent voted against the request. Both Kerry and Edwards said at the time that they were voting against the request as a protest of Bush's reconstruction plan."
"The President must be held accountable and he must change course. While he may still salvage success in Iraq, the question we must ask is: at what cost - in terms of dollars and lives? We should do this the right way," Kerry said on October 17, 2003 (transcript as printed in the Congressional Record on-line here). "The American people deserve a strategy that decreases the bill, pays our costs fairly, and makes America safer. We must have a new approach, one that maximizes international cooperation and burden sharing and minimizes the risk of failure. If the President adopts that new approach, I will gladly support any proposal that funds it."
Bush welcomed the request when it was approved. In an October 17, 2003 statement (on-line here), he said that "these funds will provide the resources necessary to make Iraq more secure and support its transition to self-government, which is critical to winning the War on Terror."
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